Resume Digest Blog

Your resume is your self marketing piece on the employment scene. The problem is unless you are an artist or an author, it's not about you - it's about them who have the power to hire you.

It would appear that people still think in terms of me, myself and I, the trilogy of self promotion. People don't care about you unless you care about them. Translated to recruitment that means that because of the deluge of applications triggered by a job post in cyberspace, you don't stand a chance of being considered for an interview unless you precisely match the must-have-features called for that position.

Close enough is not good enough. You might indeed be suitable for the role but recruiters are not going to bother looking hard for your suitability unless it is right there in front of their nose in the top third of your resume. Why? When you are confronted with 200 to 500 resumes for just one position you raise the bar so high that only 20 or so will be eligible for an interview or some aptitude tests beforehand.

The bottom line is that you have some work to do. Yes it is a snap to hit the send button and dispatch a resume via email. Your job now is to reverse engineer the requirements spelt out in the ad and make sure they feature prominently on your resume. Short of that don't bother. With the sheer number of applicants out there someone is sure to come up as a perfect fit for the role and undercut your hourly rate as well...

Looks like we have become a commodity in the workforce and bosses can afford to be very picky at hiring someone who worked for a competitor for the last five years, doing precisely what the vacant position calls for - no training or induction required.

Sounds depressing, huh? Is there a way out of this bind? Maybe if you do a bit of research. If possible people prefer to fill in the role internally rather than shouting from the rooftops they have a position available.

First target the companies where you would like to work. Try to get to know some people who work there. How? Find out where they take their lunch break and practice talking to strangers (A daunting task for some - but what have you got to lose?) Rather than handing out a stock standard resume too early wait until a job description has been written for the new position. Then approach your contact again and pass on your skill based matching resume. They might still go through a selection panel so you need to play fair.

Do not despair. Smart job seekers are using an online tool to roll out a perfect match to the position they are going after. It's called Resume Digest

Also you might want to check Aptitude Tests an online service to prepare yourself for aptitude, knowledge and IQ tests which you are sure to encounter before or during the interview.